One
hundred and thirty-five years ago come June 25, 1993, Baxter S. Pate was
hanged at Estillville (now Gate City) up in a vale on Clinch Mountain
for the murder of John Luttrell. The crime was committed in an upper
room of the old Compton's Hotel, now a vacant lot opposite Quillen
Hardware. Pate was the second execution by judicial decree in Scott
County.

Pate
wrote the following letter to his grandfather, John Williams, dated at
Estillville, VA on June 11, 1858.

I am here loaded with heavy irons in the jail at Scott
County, Virginia, awaiting my execution, surrounded with but few
friends, away from my dear father, brothers and sisters. Oh, that I had
stayed with you and not have been persuaded off, my situation would have
been quite different from what it is now, but I murdered a man without
just cause, but alcohol the king of evil spirits is to blame.

You requested me to try to meet you in a better world. I
hope to do so by the grace of God who is all mercy and who will deal out
with a liberal hand to the truly penitent, and I am pleading
continually at the foot of the cross for mercy. And ere the day comes I
hope to obtain the pearl of great price meet you with all God's good
people in the kingdom of immortal glory, where God will ever bless us in
his wisdom.

Give my best regards to Bel, Drona, Polly, Jane and John
Hensley, also William Bird. Tell them all to try to meet me in
Heaven for I have not time to write to them all individually for I must
Devote my time in making preparations to meet God and you all in Heaven.

Farewell, Farewell, my dear friends until we meet in
Heaven.

The letter was signed Bacchus Pate.

Drayton
S. Hale, an eye witness" gives the following account of the
hanging.

"The
wagon bearing the doomed man from the old jail wended its way slowly
down and up to the gallows, Pate nicely dressed and sitting on his
coffin.

As
soon as Little Moccasin Creek, the green woodland set in, the air was
fragrant with the wild grapevine bloom, the white capped alders on
either side of the sweet mountain, and wild birds were singing. It
seemed to me that truly every prospect was pleasing and only man was
vile. That poor fellow seemed to take in every object as he must have
realized it to be the last view he would ever have of nature's peaceful
loveliness. Soon the grim gallows were reached and beside it was an open
grave. The prisoner, two ministers and Dr. Herron ascended the trap
door. A guard of a hundred men, under the charge of Captain James D.
Vermillion, stood in a circle around the mountain. The mountain sides
were covered with humanity, even the trees were loaded with people (said
to have been 5,000).

Reverend Samuel Gaines preached the funeral
and Rev. Reuben Steele led in prayer and they sang.

"Then
Pate arose and in a clear voice gave out an old hymn and led the first
verse being as follows:

And am I born to die To lay this body down?
And must my trembling spirit fly into a world unknown? A land of deepest
share, un-pierced by human thought; the dreary regions of the dead where
all things are forgot.

"Then
they handed him a Bible and he read the 121st Psalm. As he read the
first lines he glanced at the steep slope of Clinch Mountain. When he
had read the chapter he gave a solemn warning to young men. 'Oh, I would
give ten thousand worlds if I could only recant the deed that brought me
to this fate. This is what the whiskey bottle has brought me to.'

"When
the death cap was drawn over his face by Sheriff Rufus Fugate, Pate, in
a loud voice said, "Sheriff tap the trap door with your hatchet
before you cut the rope."

Some
people, who were present at the hanging, doubted that Baxter Pate was
actually hanged.

Thomas Strong, one of the guards at the
hanging, said, "I do not believe Pate was hanged because of some
very strange actions and maneuvers which took place that day."

Mr.
Hale further states, "Twenty years after the hanging I spent the
night with an old gentleman in Russell County, Virginia, who advised me
that Pate was not hanged but lived in one of the Western states. Mr.
Kelly made these remarks as a positive statement."

The
letter which Pate wrote from the Estillville jail in 1858, resulted in
the plan which savedhis
life by means of a fake hanging. He was placed alive in the casket which
his Brother Masons had brought and hauled back toward home. He was freed
at the Tennessee-North Carolina line and headed for Texas where he
prospered. The hindquarter of a mule, substituted for his body, was
given a proper burial in the family cemetery. No one now remembers
which field stone marks the grave.

Two
persons were sent from Scott County shortly thereafter to open his grave
and verify his death, but were prevented from doing so under threat of
instant death, which no doubt would have been carried out.

Drayton
S. Hale was an eye witness to the hanging that took place June 25, 1858.
He tells about the hanging of one man. If there had been two men Mr.
Hale would have said so. The name Baxter S. Pate cannot be found in the
Scott County Court Records. The name McDaniel Ray is.

The
following Court Record proves that McDaniel Rhea and Baxter S. Pate were
the same person:

"At a Circuit Court begun and held for
Scott County at the Courthouse thereof on Monday, the 17th day of May,
1858. Present the Honorable Samuel V. Fulkerson, Judge.

The
Grand Jury (names omitted) having received their charge were sent to
their apartment and after sometime returned into the Court and presented
an indictment against McDaniel Rhea for murder a true bill.

"At
a Circuit Court continued and held for Scott County at the Courthouse
thereof on Monday, the 24th day of May , 1858. Present the same Judge as
on Saturday. McDaniel Rhea, late of the County of Scott, laborer, who
stands indicted of murder. was led to the bar in custody of the sheriff
of this county, whereupon came a Jury to sit (names of the Jurors
omitted).

''The
jurors were elected and sworn in conformity with the provisions of the
Act of Assembly for the trial of the said McDaniel Rhea upon the
indictment aforesaid, and the jury sworn as aforesaid, having fully
heard the evidence were with the consent of the prisoner, committed to
the Sheriff of this county, who is directed to keep them together
without communication with any other person,' and to cause them to
appear here tomorrow morning at 8 o'clock. Whereupon an oath was
administered to Thomas W. Carter and William D. Nottingham, Deputy
Sheriffs of this county, to the following effects. 'You shall well and
truly to the best of your ability, to keep this Jury, and neither speak
to them yourselves, nor suffer any other person to speak to them
touching any matter relative to this trial, until they return into Court
tomorrow, and the said McDaniel Rhea is remanded to jail.'

"At
a Circuit Court continued and held for Scott County at the Courthouse
thereof on Tuesday the 25th day of May, 1858. Present: The same Judge as
yesterday. McDaniel Rhea, late of the County of Scott, laborer, who
stands indicted of murder was again led to the bar in custody of the
Sheriff of this county, and the Jury sworn in yesterday, for the trial
were brought into Court in the custody of the Sheriff-of this county,
and upon their oath do say that the said McDaniel Rhea is guilty of
murder in the first degree, in manner and form as in the indictment
against him is alleged. Whereupon it being demanded of him if anything
for himself he had or knew to say why the Court here to judgment and
execution against him at and upon the premises should not proceed. He
said nothing but what he had before said.

Therefore,
it is considered by the Court that he be hanged by the neck until he be
dead, and the execution of this judgment be made and done upon him the
said McDaniel Rhea by the Sheriff of Scott County on Friday, the 25th
day of June, next, between the hours of ten in the forenoon and two in
the afternoon of the same day at the usual place of execution, and
thereupon the said McDaniel Rhea is remanded to jail."

Note:

McDaniel
Rhea, alias Baxter S. Pate, was from the Bee Log Community of Yancey
County, North Carolina.